The Pentagon is lifting a ban on openly transgender troops serving in the armed forces

On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter announced in a White House press conference that the Pentagon will lift the ban on openly transgender people serving in the military.

"We're eliminating policies that can result in transgender service members being treated differently from their peers based solely upon their gender identity rather than their ability to serve," Carter is expected to say Thursday. "And we're confirming that, going forward, we will apply the same general principles, standards, and procedures to transgender service members as we do to all service members.

According to RAND, a think tank, there are currently at least 2,500 transgender service members out of the 1.3 million active-duty members. There are another at least 1,500 transgender members in roughly 825,000 reserve troops. Those numbers could be closer to 7,000 and 4,000 respectively, though Carter noted Thursday there isn't adequate research yet to confirm those totals.